The CIAs Robertson UFO panel met during the last few days of the Truman
administration. It ended the UFO discussion, and any plans for future UFO investigations,
only days before Eisenhower took office. The report filed by the CIA committee was sent
not to the Truman administration, for whom the study was done, but to the new Eisenhower
administration. (It is found in an NSC file at the Eisenhower library)

Along with the CIA-sponsored report sent to the Eisenhower White House, came the
revisionist opinions that had been arrived at by the panel. The panel had called for
active debunking of UFOs in the public mind. It also called for surveillance of public UFO
groups. "It is believed that such organizations should be watched because of their
potentially great influence on mass thinking if widespread sightings should occur. The
apparent irresponsibility and possible use of such groups for subversive purposes should
be kept in mind."

It appears from the available evidence that President Eisenhower chose to adopt the
negative views toward public UFO groups, which had been recommended by the CIA. At least
that appears to be the way President Eisenhower responded to the UFO mail that arrived at
the White House.

In public, Eisenhower portrayed the good natured and trusted father figure. Behind the
scenes he had targeted many people to be watched by the Secret Service and the FBI. One of
the targeted groups were people who believed there was a UFO mystery, and had written the
President for help or to make recommendations.

Documents inside the National Archives show that as of 1963, just shortly after
Eisenhower left office, the Secret Service had a million names in its "threat"
files. These were names of people who were seen as a threat to the President, and who had
to be watched lest they harm the President. Included in this list was anyone who had dined
at the White House, obtained a press pass, or anyone who had been introduced to the
President on a trip.

The threat list included left wing types like Jane Fonda, and most black people up to
and including Muhammad Ali, Joe Lewis, and Harry Belafonte. It also included UFO
researcher Len Stringfield, flying saucer contactee George Van Tassel, and retired
Vice-Admiral Herbert Knowles.

Len Stringfields threat to the President came first from the December 17,
1954-letter (mentioned above) to President Eisenhower following Eisenhowers press
conference statement on December 15, 1954 where he stated "the last time I heard this
talked to me, a man who I trust from the Air Forces said that it was, as far as he knew,
completely inaccurate to believe that they came from any outside planet or
otherwise." Stringfield questioning of the opinion of the Air Force man who had
supposedly advised the President on UFOs ended Stringfield on the "threat list."

A second letter written from Len Stringfield to the President on March 31, 1956 was
also seen as a threat to the President and was also sent to the Secret Service. This
letter has not been recovered yet, so we do not know what it said that was deemed a threat
by the White House.

A third letter from Len Stringfield to President Eisenhower, dated June 10, 1960, was
not acknowledged by the White House, but was forwarded almost a month later by an
Assistant to the President to the Defense Department. For some reason it was not seen as a
threat, and sent to the Secret Service.

The letter was an appeal to President Eisenhower to release "all vital information
relative to UFOs" to the news services. Stringfield also proposed a system of dealing
with UFO through the United Nations. "The United Nations serving in this new
capacity," wrote Stringfield, "should remind man-on-earth he must forget his
boundaries and ideologies and work together in this new era of challenge."

Springfield had sent similar two page letters to Prime Minister Harold MacMillan of
Great Britain, President Charles DeGaulle of France, Prime Minister Nikita Khrushchev, and
both major wire services.

Another person whose UFO correspondence to the President seemed to go everywhere but to
the President was George Van Tassel. Van Tassel was one of the major contactees of the
1950's. He claimed to have been in contact an alien by the name of Ashtar.

Van Tassels first letter to President Eisenhower was "critical of the
proposed acquisition of additional land by the 11th Naval District." This
letter was forwarded for action to the Department of the Interior.

The second item sent to Eisenhower was a telegram which is one of the five items the
Eisenhower Library lists as part of its collection of UFO documents. It was written just
after Ikes famous February 1954 Palm Springs vacation, where it is rumored he
slipped off to Edwards Air Force Base on alien business.

The telegram was a report to the President about an April 4, 1954 space craft
convention that Van Tassel had hosted at Giant Rock, California. Van Tassel had written to
the President to tell him that the convention "had voted to recommend the transfer of
UFO investigations from the military to the elected branch of government." As the
Eisenhower library stated of this item, "the telegram was never answered and there is
no evidence that the President ever saw it."

The third item sent to Eisenhower was the most interesting. It was an item dated May
25, 1957, signed by George Van Tassel and three other members from the College of
Universal Wisdom, Yucca Valley, California. It was transferred by someone within the White
House to the Secret Service on June 4, 1957, and the Eisenhower Library has no record of
what the correspondence was about.

Fortunately, based on an interview that George Van Tassel did about this time in 1957
on the Long John Party Line Show on WOR Radio in New York City, we know what the
letter was about, and why it may have been sent to the Secret Service.

According to what Van Tassel said on the show, he had written President Eisenhower
telling him that he would be in Washington, D.C., on June 22, 1954, and would be stopping
into the White House for a visit. This was a very strange request, even for 1954, when
most people knew that a special appointment was needed to see the President. Further, it
was common knowledge that Eisenhower was so busy, that very few people actually got to see
the President.

Van Tassel, however, claimed to have been "close enough to him (Eisenhower) the
time he came to Palm Springs to know what was going on." It appeared, therefore, that
Van Tassel had some connection with Eisenhower, or someone inside the White House, that he
thought all he had to do was send a letter telling the President that he was coming.

"I wrote the President for a meeting on the 22nd at his
convenience," said Van Tassel. "I have not so far received an answer from the
White House, which leads me to believe that the way I wrote the letter, led them to
believe that I would be there in Washington anyway, and upon a phone call will be fitted
into his schedule sometime that day. Because of the (Presidents) recent sickness, I
suppose all our schedules were upset. They certainly had time to answer my request and
tell me no, if they were going to turn me down. I dont feel that I am being brushed
off or ignored. In the event that I am, I will certainly publish that."

Appointment calendars stored at the Eisenhower library show that the meeting
didnt take place. At this point we still dont know how Van Tassel did about
the rejection.

The final UFO letter transferred to the Secret Service was one written by retired
Vice-Admiral Herbert Knowles who had written to President Eisenhower in early May 1954.
The letter remained in the White House for one month, till early June 1954, when it was
transferred. In the letter Knowles notified the president of a woman by the name of
Frances Swan who lived in his town of Elliot, Maine.

Knowles told the President that Mrs. Swan had exhibited the ability to answer
scientific questions well beyond her education, and claimed that the questions were being
answered for her by an alien by the name of AFFA. Knowles further notified Eisenhower that
the Navy, and the Canadian government were investigating the strange powers being
exhibited by Mrs. Swan.

The timing of the Knowles letter to President Eisenhower is critical to understanding
why the Knowles letter may have been moved out of the White House, and why it took one
month to move it to the Secret Service. It might also explain why the FBI, USAF, and the
CIA joined in on the investigation of the strange case of Mrs. Swan and AFFA the alien.

The UFOs that had invaded the Capitol in 1952, forcing the largest news conference
since World War 11, were back. The CRIFO Newsletter for June 4, 1954 described the
situation in a front page story:

Not since July 29,1952, when General Samford was forced to make a public statement
to check the rising tide of alarm . . . has the Pentagon been faced with such a climax of
events. The men of decision were now before the wall of decision . . . the blind alley
they themselves created through years of ambiguity, contradictions, and silence. At this
point of no return these men must now face all of us and either 1) tell us all, or 2) deny
everything.

The first sighting in the new Washington wave, was reported by radio journalist Frank
Edwards, who received information about a May 13 sighting from a number of the electronic
specialists who were involved. Edwards was living in Washington at the time, and some of
the specialists involved in the sighting were friends of his. Edwards described the
sighting:

On that day, shortly before noon, a team of experts were putting the final touches on a
new type of radar. They noticed that it was recording some type of object at great
altitude - something of unusual size. They doubled checked by switching on another unit,
and it too began tracking the same object. They were able to determine that it was at
least two hundred and fifty feet in diameter, about 15 miles above Washington, and that it
was moving from point to point around a rectangular pattern in the sky at about 250 miles
per hour. After three hours of this maneuvering, under the scrutiny of several government
radar installations, the object finally moved toward the west and disappeared from the
screens.

At 12:45 the same afternoon, another two objects were sighted by two police officers at
the National Airport. The two large glowing objects which approached the airport and flew
over the airport and Washington across the Potomac river. The two objects continued to be
seen intermittently for the next hour and fifteen minutes. Newsmen at the Pentagon
questioned the Air Force spokesman about the object, but the Washington Post only
mentioned the objects flying over the White House in only their first edition. In the
second edition of the next day, the story had disappeared. As Edwards described it
"The lid was on." Edwards carried the story on his nation wide broadcast from
Washington that evening.

There is no doubt that President Eisenhower was aware of the objects flying over his
office and home.

In addition to the new sighting wave over Washington, D.C., the month before had
featured many media stories about the very close approach to the earth of the planet Mars.

It was known by most UFO researchers that in 1954 that since 1948, every 26 months Mars
had made a close approach to earth, and that with every approach there was an increase in
UFO sightings. Also being reported by astronomers were mysterious clouds and color changes
which many interpreted as vegetation.

In 1954, as Mars closed in on earth, an International Mars committee was established
with the cooperation of the National Geographic. It was headed by Dr. E.C. Slipher, the
worlds greatest authority on Mars, from Lowell Observatory. The "Mars
Patrol" increased the public consciousness about the unresolved question of whether
or not there was life on Mars. The committee with it experts from 17 countries, according
to Keyhoe, gave the Air Force great concern.

Dr. Slipher , speaking for the committee was asked in a news conference what he would
do if they found proof of life on Mars. He quickly stated, "Ill announce it to
the world." He further stated that the committee would put out Mars Patrol Bulletins
to inform the public of the twenty-four hour a day watch on Mars. The bulletins would be
put out every day if required.

Having gone through a massive wave of sightings in 1952 when Mars last approached,
daily bulletins could not have made the UFO censors happy. So it appears from the evidence
that they took matters into their hands and did something about the situation. Not one
Mars Patrol bulletin was ever published!

The number of articles about Mars in early1954 publications increased, and again the
UFO sighting numbers started to rise. The type of articles that were being printed also
did not please the Air Force. The normally conservative Readers Digest for example
came out with an article in April 1954, only two months before the closest approach of
Mars.

Rather than debunking the alien angle, the Digest suggested that Martians might
actually be creatures similar to humans. The article stated that it appeared Mars was a
dying place, but suggested that they might have learned to manufacture oxygen. Most
unnerving to the Air Force censors according to Keyhoe was the statement;

And presumably the Martians, an intelligent race, would be feverishly hunting around
for other planets to which they could migrate. Earth was the closest, most suitable
planet.

The earth had already gone through one "War of the Worlds" during a close
approach of Mars in 1939, so suggestions about Martians choosing our planet was not music
to the ears of those who controlled the UFO data. Most disturbing was the fact that not
only was the number of UFO sightings increasing in 1954, the sizes of the objects being
seen were increasing.

The prime example was the tracking of two objects that were reportedly revolving around
the earth in early 1954. It is one thing to file a sighting that involved a 20-foot saucer
with maybe six aliens checking out the local vegetation. It was another thing to talk
about objects miles across just outside the atmosphere that could contain thousands of
invading Martians. Major Keyhoe through his government sources had confirmed that U.S.
authorities were closely monitoring the objects.

For this reason, the military pushed to put the spin on the revolving satellites as non
existent - or if existent, as only "moonlets," or natural asteroids that had
become captured by the earths magnetic field. The alternative would be an apparent
large scale migration by Martians or some other alien force to the earth.

The two large orbiting objects discovered in early 1954 had to be a fact that was known
to President Eisenhower. Therefore, when Vice-Admiral Knowles wrote in May 1954, that he
had a local woman who was in contact with an alien who was commanding one of these two
orbiting objects, it must have startled the White House.

May 1954 was also a critical month to receive a letter in light of two other major
events that were occurring in that month. Firstly, whether orchestrated by Eisenhower or
the Air Force, Eisenhowers friend, Chief of Staff of the Air Force General Nathan
Twinning, made a surprising digression in a speech in Amarillo, Texas, less than
forty-eight hours later to talk about the UFO problem. "The best brains in the Air
Force are working on this problem of Unidentified Flying objects," he stated,
"trying to solve this mystery."

Secondly, in a more conspiratorial note, just before the Eisenhower White House
transferred the Knowles letter out, Ikes CIA Director, Walter Bedell Smith, along
with Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, David Rockefeller, and many of the worlds
top financiers convened for the inaugural meeting of the Bilderberg Group. Rumored as one
of the items on the agenda of the organization in the early days was
"extraterrestrial contact."

The Knowles letter was held for a month till the White House could plan what was
happening, and what it should do. It was then transferred over to the Secret Service, and
a major investigation of Mrs. Swan was started by a number of federal agencies.